Dragon’s Dogma 2, the sequel to Capcom’s 2012 action-RPG, opened to glowing praise from reviewers, scoring an 87 on Metacritic overall. The game’s Steam debut also hit a peak concurrent player count of over 184,000, breaking Capcom’s records as their most successful singleplayer launch on the platform.
However, this initial burst of enthusiasm quickly turned sour as players were hit with performance issues bred from poor optimization and, worst of all, a smattering of microtransactions.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 Is A Laborious Experience On PC
PC gamers were among the first to dip their toes into Dragon’s Dogma 2. Naturally, well-optimized games get along great with PC players, but Capcom’s latest RPG does not find itself in that club. Frequent crashes, stuttery gameplay, and CPU-bottlenecked framerates spoil the PC experience, with players even reporting the game grinding to a halt sometimes.
The situation is so bad that Steam reviews quickly plummeted into ‘Mostly Negative’ territory. Fingers are being pointed at Denuvo, the anti-tamper software implemented by Capcom for the game. While Denuvo is an effective tool in combating piracy, it’s notorious for exacting a serious toll on performance.
Microtransactions Are The Moldy Cherry On Top
However, all of those issues are a drop in the bucket compared to the real reason behind player outrage. Dragon’s Dogma 2 has an egregious amount of microtransactions, but the kicker is that Capcom slyly activated them after critics published their scores to not let it affect their reviews. Fans are livid at the deceptive approach.
Microtransactions in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are beyond greedy🤦🏻♀️
Game’s received a “Mostly Negative” score on Steam.
Pay for Fast Travel = Yuck😓 pic.twitter.com/M7GjpRWzAA
— Pure PlayStation (ピュア プレイステーション) (@Pure_PS) March 22, 2024
Players are seriously disappointed at the presence of purchasable items that can also be obtained through regular gameplay. The ability to edit your character’s appearance (a core RPG feature), camping kits, and even fast travel are prime examples of these ludicrous microtransactions.
The practice is undoubtedly exploitative, especially for a full-priced $70 title. The sentiment is further exacerbated by another player’s comparison of Larian’s approach to microtransactions in Baldur’s Gate 3 versus Capcom shovelling them into DD2. When you consider how much larger the latter company is, the money-grubbing seems even more flagrant.
Anyone remember Larian’s statement on MTX for Baldur’s Gate 3? Dragon’s Dogma 2 really makes me wish every company followed this, so disappointing. pic.twitter.com/vWvNoyV8OG
— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) March 22, 2024
Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s long-term success hinges on Capcom’s ability to quickly address these concerns. Further optimization for PC should be high on their priority list. A re-evaluation of the MTX model, such as offering purely cosmetic items for purchase, and not essential gameplay features, would also help restore lost goodwill.
This would not only address the concerns of players who feel the current system is exploitative, but also potentially generate additional revenue through the sale of desirable cosmetic microtransactions.
Capcom still has time to not only improve the DD2 experience on PC, but also rekindle the excitement that propelled it to a record-breaking launch. The community has waited long and patiently for the game, and fixing these issues would go a long way to honor their investment and patience.
